The whole house was packed with who my mother considered family, though I knew few of them by name. How did so many people come to love my mother? I wondered as I passed through the door of our home on that blistering June day, one of the last schooldays of my freshman year.

My mother lay in the living room, barely recognizable at 95 pounds and so little hair. Strangers hugged me, as though somehow their embrace would erase the fact that my mother was dying before us. I was confused, scared, and didn’t know how to act. How does one act when their mother is dying? I had to get this right: everybody in her world was watching!

Darlene Birdwell Quintero, mother of four, dies of cancer at 38 years old. Did somebody hand out instructions on this? My heart is breaking, my mind confused, my feet not on the ground, nor can I float to the wall and plaster myself like a fly, though I wish that I could. I struggle to find a place at the corner of her bed, and lean over to see if her eyes could recognize mine. They could not. I note the increasing rasp of her breath, the decreasing frequency of her draw. The crowd grew quiet as her loved ones surrounded the hospital bed posted where the couch once was.

The heat of the mid-afternoon sun drove somebody to open the sliding glass door, though you’d not know for the stillness of the day. Low whispers wind together in a collage of unrecognizable speech. We all wait patiently for the end, each breath growing farther and farther apart.

Where will my mother go? Will this be it? Will she magically float to heaven on angel’s wings? Will the devil break earth and drag her below to his chamber of fire and swine? Will nothing at all happen?

Suddenly my mother opens her mouth wide, as if struggling for room to let air in. She sucks hard and long, her chin reaching for the ceiling, her neck outstretched, elongating the passage of air filling her lungs for the last time. She savors each molecule and dust mite in her final breath. As if singing her home, the wind chimes hanging in the old redwood tree howl while the only breeze of the day takes flight. Swirling through the trees off the back deck, curling its fingers around the sliding glass door, it makes it’s passage through the living room, across the hospital bed, and swoops my mother’s soul up on it’s shirttails, whisking her off to her new home in the Ethers.

Slipping in, sinking slowly, the silky water moistening my skin and soothing my senses into this precise moment. A feather on the wind of time, I reside, swirling into the nothingness and everythingness that is this sacred pool.

Ahhhhh, beautiful water Divas, guardian Goddesses of these crevices
You watchful angels over prayerful souls
Thank you for being here today
For adorning me in all of my nakedness
For knowing and loving each crevice of my body
as you do the crevices of the earth from which you flow

Passing through the garden gate, I meander with my beloved, earthly scents permeating my senses and cleansing my mind of thought. Gently I slow my pace, coming fully into the present moment, the sun softening my gaze, my heartbeat in rhythm with the song of my feet playing the earthen path.

Thirsty, I was. I needed water, was my excuse. Five more minutes in the company of my beloved, that’s all I really wanted. And here he is, my lover, my beloved, the softness of his skin brushing my skin as we walk, my senses heightened in arousal at his accidental touch. Entering into the sunlight before me, my beloved passes, and I squint to see sparks of love kissing his aura in a million streams of light, shining forth from his being like honey dripping into the ethers for all of the garden goddesses to witness. A perfect God.

Masterful lover, oh giver of life, how can one contain this beautiful creature? This wild and perfect force of freedom, triumphant as the wind itself? Confidently he strides amongst his beloved Goddesses, slowly taking each of them in, adoration penetrating deeply into their quivering branches, openly making love with each of them, his honey dripping through the ethers and ascending the garden path in front of us.

Swirling inward now, my own juiciness enlivening me, waking me up like a sprinkling of water, that brilliant inner sun illuminating my thoughts, offering a glimpse at my own magnificence.

Closing my eyes, I remember being that flower. That absolute single point of focused love, the scent of my desire pulling at his nectar, insisting that he land hard and love well, my juiciness too enlivening to resist, my love too full to restrain. Water swirling around my mouth now, falling fruitlessly from my lips and into the dead pan below.

How ironic, I think, rising up from the fountain and turning into the shadows that lead back down the path, as the flower wilts in the brilliant sun, fire and thirst too much to endure for more than a season or two.

An abandoned lover resides here, in the shadows of my heart. What will a sullen and fruitless season bare? Could this dark space actually contain a magnificent gift? The lonely crevices of my heart cry out to be explored, each line a world of its own, each curve an enchanted valley of ancient secrets, each drop of blood a night sky, angels singing from star to star.

Softening my gaze, my heartbeat in rhythm with the song of my feet playing the earthen path, I meander as my beloved, and pass once again through the garden gate, back to the place from which I came, as the flower passes back to its earthen grave, biding time in the underworld in wait of a new spring.

Passing through the garden gate, I meander with my beloved, earthly scents permeating my senses and cleansing my mind of thought. Gently I slow my pace, coming fully into the present moment, the sun softening my gaze, my heartbeat in rhythm with the song of my feet playing the earthen path.

Thirsty, I was. I needed water, was my excuse. Five more minutes in the company of my beloved, that’s all I really wanted. And here he is, my lover, my beloved, the softness of his skin brushing my skin as we walk, my senses heightened in arousal at his accidental touch. Entering into the sunlight before me, my beloved passes, and I squint to see sparks of love kissing his aura in a million streams of light, shining forth from his being like honey dripping into the ethers for all of the garden goddesses to witness. A perfect God.

Masterful lover, oh giver of life, how can one contain this beautiful creature? This wild and perfect force of freedom, triumphant as the wind itself? Confidently he strides amongst his beloved Goddesses, slowly taking each of them in, adoration penetrating deeply into their quivering branches, openly making love with each of them, his honey dripping through the ethers and ascending the garden path in front of us.

God, I’m thirsty, I think, mouth to fountain, tongue searching to stifle the unquenchable fire in my heart. Closing my eyes, I remember being that flower. That absolute single point of focused love, the scent of my desire pulling at his nectar, insisting that he land hard and love well, my juiciness too enlivening to resist, my love too full to restrain. Water swirling around my mouth now, falling fruitlessly from my lips and into the dead pan below.

An abandoned lover resides here, in the shadows of my heart. What will a sullen and fruitless season bare? Could this dark space actually contain a magnificent gift? The lonely crevices of my heart cry out to be explored, each line a world of its own, each curve an enchanted valley of ancient secrets, each drop of blood a night sky, angels singing from star to star. Swirling inward now, my own juiciness enlivening me, waking me up like a sprinkling of water, that brilliant inner sun illuminating my thoughts, offering a glimpse at my own magnificence.

How ironic, I think, rising up from the fountain and turning into the shadows that lead back down the path, as the flower wilts in the brilliant sun, fire and thirst too much to endure for more than a season or two.

Softening my gaze, my heartbeat in rhythm with the song of my feet playing the earthen path, I meander as my beloved, and pass once again through the garden gate, back to the place from which I came, as the flower passes back to its earthen grave, biding time in the underworld in wait of a new spring.